One popular and effective cutting device for vegetation employs one or more strand-like cutting elements which are rotated by a rotary cutting head. The strand-like cutting element is plastic and is fed out from the rotary cutting head as the cutting element is used up. The rotary cutting head is mounted on a suitable supporting structure, which includes an elongated handle, and a motor rotates the cutting head and the cutting element at high velocity.
Cutting devices of this type are of light weight and can be easily manually manipulated to cut or trim various forms of vegetation, such as grass, weeds and the like. Such cutting devices are commonly used for trimming and edging.
One problem with cutting devices of this type is that the strand-like cutting element can cut or damage various objects. For example, the cutting element rotating at high speed can do significant damage to the bark or trees, flowers and plants which are not intended to be trimmed, and wooden planter boxes. Prior art hood-type guards, such as those shown in Schnell et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,128 and Voglesonger U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,278, which have a forwardly facing opening, are not as effective as desired in guarding objects of this type.